President Biden [D] & Speaker McCarthy [R] clash ahead of White House debt ceiling meeting

[sear]

The United States congress has saddled itself with an unworkable additional, self-inflicted adversity: the U.S. federal "debt ceiling".
The original idea was to employ this powerful tool as a weapon to restrain run-away congressional spending. And that as a means to restrain the U.S.' astronomical federal debt. It's not working.

The debt ceiling has never worked.
Instead it provides congress a serial crisis reminiscent of Bill Murray's Groundhog Day.

This repeating crisis is akin to institutionalists having to play chicken with Republican iconoclasts.

Defaulting on the U.S. federal debt for the first time would result in substantial repercussions for Earth's global economies.

Apart from that the debt ceiling doesn't address the budget directly. It only threatens the U.S.' ability to pay the bills congress has already approved.

Biden and McCarthy clash ahead of White House debt ceiling meeting​

Published Wed, Feb 1 2023 12:09 PM

Key Points

• President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy will meet Wednesday afternoon to discuss the looming U.S. debt ceiling deadline.
• The meeting is a key test of whether the Democratic president and the Republican House speaker can build a working relationship.
• But while McCarthy is preparing for a negotiation, the White House is battening down the hatches for a fight.
• Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has estimated Congress may need to suspend or increase the debt limit before early June to avoid a first-ever default on U.S. debt.

Obvious topic questions:
Which side will blink?
Will Republicans allow the U.S. to default?
Will notable budget restraining legislation be passed into law in 2023?

 

[Shiftless2]

Do anyone honestly believe that McCarthy is preparing for a negotiation?

And does anyone think that all those Republicans understand what it would mean to the US (and the world) if the US defaults?

 

[sear]

To guard the harem they employ eunuchs, not sexual predators.
Yet ostensibly for the good governance of the United States Republicans have elected a slew of liars and traitors *. Could Roe v. Wade have been overturned if the majority of the Republican appointed SCOTUS justices didn't commit perjury?
President Trump swore an oath of fidelity to the Constitution, yet before his first 4 year term had expired Trump took deliberate steps to overthrow that Constitution.

I cannot find any persuasive reassurance that this most severe internal threat faces competent State preserving, law preserving opposition. It appears since the Jan. 6 insurrection and its years long aftermath the U.S. has at no other point in my lifetime been in such severe jeopardy.

* Santos is bad, but perhaps not the worst.

 

[titan]

Debt-Ceiling Talks’ Late Start Amps Up Pressure on Congress​

Republicans and Democrats point fingers as U.S. approaches default​

Time isn’t on Washington’s side.
With the U.S. facing a potentially economy-shaking default as soon as next month, logistical hurdles, disagreements on the scope of any talks, a tight legislative calendar and a late start are complicating negotiations over raising the debt ceiling.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/late-s...ressure-on-congress-149fdf61?mod=hp_lead_pos7

 

[sear]

t #4
In high school we called it "the game of chicken". The idea is to demonstrate ones superiority by compelling the opponent to forfeit. It's inconsequential when the stakes are low.
The Republicans have made this an exceedingly high-stakes game. Many news reports allude to the consequences though dire, to be national. Economically the consequences would be global.
And the $bell cannot be unrung.

The principle of "full faith and credit Uncle Sam" originated at our nation's Founding. Here to fore the United States has paid its financial debts. This has contributed to the stability of the $U.S. $Dollar which has for more than one purpose
become a currency of international trade, in crude oil for example.
If the global oil markets abandon the U.S. dollar for any other medium of exchange, the euro perhaps, such change would likely be permanent.
That in turn may weaken the U.S.' supervisory capacity over the critical global oil trade at a critical time in planetary history, when anthropogenic global warming threatens catastrophic if not potentially cataclysmic consequences.

That's but one of countless examples.
Yet Republicans evidently feel so self-righteous about their budgetary concerns, concerns I share with Republicans by the way, that they place this centuries long tradition of "full faith & credit" at risk.
Seems childish to me, in the sense of willingness to risk enormous long-term consequences for problems that can be directly addressed in the short term.

And so Biden / the Dems. are dealing with the children, on the unlikely premise that they will suddenly begin to act reasonably, responsibly on this issue.
There is doubt both at home and abroad about that.